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This is what we asked Jason Perlow. He wrote a Linux Magazine column for many years and now writes for ZDNet. The ZDNet blurb describes him as "a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies." Most recently, he worked for IBM, and for Unisys before that. So Jason knows plenty about Linux and its role in big-time enterprise computing. In this video, he talks about how Linux needs to take another step forward to gain even more enterprise traction in coming years.

Robin: This is Jason Perlow, who has written for Linux Magazine and now ZDNet and has worked for IBM and for Unisys, all pretty much on Linux, and before that he was a big UNIX guy. So, tell me what does Linux need to do now to become even more accepted in the enterprise?

Jason: So, Linux has really evolved over the last 10 to 15 years. It’s gone from like a science project of one particular guy living in Finland to one of the most scalable enterprise offering systems in the world. It’s gone from a hobbyist operating system with no commercial support to an operating system that’s been embraced by the largest enterprise systems vendors in the word including IBM, HP, Oracle, Dell, you name it.

So, in terms of being able to handle workloads, we now have an operating system that could handle large of amount of codes and processors on a monolithic system, on clusters, huge memory configurations, enterprise storage, all those things are part of the operating system today. Where Linux lags behind some of the more other commercial enterprise products includes commercial [UNIX systems] as well as Windows-based enterprise environments, and the mainframe is really in management.

The reason why management has become so important this year and it will be over the coming years, is that more and more enterprises are going to be divorcing themselves from owning their own infrastructure and that’s just because you have a crappy economy, people don’t want to have computer assets anymore, they want to buy it as a service, essentially infrastructure-as-a-service from hosting and cloud providers. Or, if they want to have their own infrastructure, they need to be able to provision it very quickly.

So, you don’t want to have a situation where you bring a virtual server up or any kind of server up, and it take hours or days or weeks to get it configured and ready for production. You want to be able to spin it up within minutes. And not just one server, you want to be able to spin up a whole group of servers that are part of an application architecture pretty quickly. So, typically in a 3-tier architecture, you might have a web server, you might have a middleware server and a database server, that’s one simple configuration.

Well, each of those servers may have pieces and components on them that are fairly complex. You want to be able to template an application architecture like that and spin it out within minutes just by clicking a button. So, that’s something that Linux needs to have in order to become successful if you are going to have something which is called multi-tenant cloud tenancy. You want to be able to have these cloud providers which can sell Linux as an infrastructure to customers, essentially like you would buy electricity or water from your local utility company.

Robin: Yeah, are you sure? IBM, HP, these guys have been trying to do that for years. I’ve gotten press release after press release and I’ve always asked, well where are the customers and they never were able to sell the service. So are people buying it now?

Jason: People are definitely buying it now and you’re seeing it happen at Amazon, you’re seeing it happen at Rackspace, you’re seeing it happen at also companies – Amazon, and also Microsoft with their Azure service as well. So that’s just a couple of them. There are 4,000 service providers in the United States which are offering Linux virtualized to customers. Now all of them have different abilities to provision in terms of the speed at which they can provision a system and what they cost and what the complexity of their offerings are, but these are real companies that are selling to your customers.

Linux already far and away the dominant server OS in big enterprise, except for things like exchange and maybe sharepoint. My company is one of the top US companies with more than 80,000 employees worldwide and we're even starting to see some uptake of Linux desktops replacing windows for certain kinds of developer. For the record, I vastly prefer windows 7 to any linux desktop I've ever used and I hate MacOSX, but all things considered, I would never let windows anywhere near any of my servers. PuTTY is my

Linux is not as viable as you might think. A large percentage of office workers work at large companies. Large companies require enterprise level support systems, something that Microsoft, and the Windows ecosystem, does a good job providing and which Linux just doesn't have. It's one of the reasons why Linux has not gained traction.

I'm thinking maybe account management and such, but I'm sure alternatives are available. Even if they weren't, Linux machines can be used in place of Windows clients in an Active Directory environment.

There are organisations that do enterprise support for Linux anyway.. Red Hat and the like.

I'm thinking maybe account management and such, but I'm sure alternatives are available. Even if they weren't, Linux machines can be used in place of Windows clients in an Active Directory environment.

There are organisations that do enterprise support for Linux anyway.. Red Hat and the like.

Account management is but the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, there are organizations that perform enterprise support. However, these services are largely dedicated to servers and not to workstations.

Running Windows in an enterprise is one of the most likely things to make you hate Windows. I wouldn't necessarily fault Linux for not being able to be managed the same way that Fortune 100 companies manage their Windows desktops.

It really gives you an understanding for those 80s corporate rogues that first adopted DOS.

Imagine the federal government managing your PC. That pretty much what you end up with.

Its an ecosystem of software that allows group policy to determine what can and can not be done with a computer. Standardize antivirus? Want to spy on web traffic to prevent porn/games on company time? Want to bog down a developer box so that their IDE is so slow you have to wait for shit to pop up when you click, and you can waste 45 minutes building the application while norton dismembers your hard drive, and then cause a Permgen Space error half the time because the JVM isn't allowed to use more than 256megs of ram?

Enterprise level support is the answer. I'm not the least bit frustrated that I waste 2 hours a day because I am trying to get shit done while my computer gags on a bag of cocks that it is forced on developer and marketing douchebag alike.

I agree, I got tired of doing development and spending hours of my week screwing with, investigating, and solving windows bugs.....I would waste so much time and still get nowhere. If one does enterprise software development, Linux is the only way to go. I do anticipate that if Microsoft keep going on the same trajectory....they will phase out C#...

Its an ecosystem of software that allows group policy to determine what can and can not be done with a computer. Standardize antivirus? Want to spy on web traffic to prevent porn/games on company time? Want to bog down a developer box so that their IDE is so slow you have to wait for shit to pop up when you click, and you can waste 45 minutes building the application while norton dismembers your hard drive, and then cause a Permgen Space error half the time because the JVM isn't allowed to use more than 256megs of ram?

Enterprise level support is the answer. I'm not the least bit frustrated that I waste 2 hours a day because I am trying to get shit done while my computer gags on a bag of cocks that it is forced on developer and marketing douchebag alike.

No, it's an ecosystem that keeps the rest of the corporation safe from developers who would rather bitch, complain, and hack their systems, disabling all security measures, because they are not mature or responsible enough to work with corporate support to find a solution.

That's exactly the way it should be done. Your a develop developing for people in your company. If you machine isn't reflective of the douchebags in marketing your going to develop for an environment that your company doesn't have. The net result is that once your code hits production your code behaves differently for your users than it does for you.

My understanding is that it's a euphemism for a mangled mess of proprietary protocols often specific to IE. Like most of our modern problems it is the result of very short-sighted thinking and a sales method of hypnotizing customers with buzz words that trigger certain parts of the brain to give a general feeling of amazement without any specifics.

I very much disagree, but perhaps have less ignorance than you on the subject. Redhat and Suse are known just for the Enterprise support. It's expensive, just like Microsoft.. but has patching, inventory, software management, etc.. just like you mention below. Ubuntu has LTS which is supposed to be similar, but I have no personal experience with their support.

"Large companies require enterprise level support systems, something that Microsoft, and the Windows ecosystem, does a good job providing and which Linux just doesn't have"

I can't think of a better way to announce to the world that you know nothing about Linux, and how companies make money on Linux, than making such a phenomenally stupid statement.

And I can't think of a better way to announce to the world that you cannot read a comment in context. I was referring to Linux on the desktop for the common office work.

I agree that there are many Linux support vendors for the enterprise server side of the house. There just isn't the same level of off-the-shelf software and support services for workstations and corporate users. Linux just doesn't have these level of solutions to support a large organization.

Wow, Really!!! What do YOU call that laptop/desktop that you, as a user, use at work then? (how dense can you be)

Yes, desktop/user support in an enterprise is completely different than server support. If you don't understand this, then go talk to your desktop support guys and then talk to your server support guys. Both groups have different needs and tool requirements.

So you didn't know that Redhat offers support for the desktop [redhat.com]? I assumed you were talking about home users since you said there is just no option for somebody, and there is certainly enterprise level support for the desktop. Just accept that you made a ridiculous unfounded claim, which I countered in 1 Google search, and move on with your uninformed life.

You missed the original post that I was replying to. The original post said: "Linux is actually a viable alternative to Windows for a lot of typical office workers. It really depends what software they need".

So yes, in this context "enterprise" would refer to enterprise user desktops...

I'd call that a little traction. And that's just Red Hat, not including alternatives like SuSe, Oracle, and so forth.

A more telling indication of how well Linux performs in the Enterprise ecosystem is probably the invention of Windows PowerShell. Which is, in large part, a response to the fact that even the most ancient 1990s versions of Linux sported a selection of shells suitable for remote administration and scripting in a way that the comparatively feeble COMMAND.COM a

I'd call that a little traction. And that's just Red Hat, not including alternatives like SuSe, Oracle, and so forth.

A more telling indication of how well Linux performs in the Enterprise ecosystem is probably the invention of Windows PowerShell. Which is, in large part, a response to the fact that even the most ancient 1990s versions of Linux sported a selection of shells suitable for remote administration and scripting in a way that the comparatively feeble COMMAND.COM and CMD.EXE shells do not.

I could be even nastier and point out that the RPM database that's installed on every Red Hat family system (including Fedora and CentOS) has not only a complete inventory of all packages installed on the system, including information that can be used to not only inventory what files are installed where, but checksum information that can be used to trivially scan for possible damage or sabotage and that if Windows has yet added such a feature it happened very, very recently. Or enumerate the various provisioning and monitoring tools available for Linux. But that's just being vicious.

Yes, but you are talking about servers, and I am talking about office user workstation support. My comment was strictly concerning workstations for the common office user in a large enterprise. User support is a completely different beast than server support.

Yes, but you are talking about servers, and I am talking about office user workstation support. My comment was strictly concerning workstations for the common office user in a large enterprise. User support is a completely different beast than server support.

None of the resources I mentioned are exclusive to server configurations. They are part of all of the Red Hat family distros, including the desktop-oriented Fedora. Which also includes VNC, VPN and Windows Remote Desktop clients as well for those who don't have a decent remote command-line interface.

In fact, all these tools are part of the standard Fedora installation repositories. You don't have to go out and assemble them from various third parties and tools sub-sites of microsoft.com. Or, for that matter

Nice post, but here in the future we have paved roads and decent *nix systems. Sadly, just like the flying cars, MS in the server room never really took off apart from a few isolated examples (mail+calendar servers and NIS+ style login stuff, except built on a propriety subset of LDAP). Not having a decent filesystem for "enterprise" storage is one of the reasons why MS has not gained traction in the server room.What? You are posting now and not via hot tub time machine from 1996? Give up on the drugs m

Large companies require enterprise level support systems, something that Microsoft, and the Windows ecosystem, does a good job providing and which Linux just doesn't have.

Yes that is true but what do you mean by the "enterprise" buzzword? As for using a Linux distribution or a Microsoft distribution both work well. I personally in my capacity as a professional engineer have been using a native Linux OS on my company laptop and also as home for many years and have not had any issues and I work for a Fortune 500 company.

Linux on the desktop (the server room is a different matter) has not gained traction in first world countries mainly becau

"Look at Windows 8. Don't like the unterface? tough, there's nothing you can do about it.
Now look at Unity. Don't like the interface? Well try these others, there's plenty to choose from."

This is actually the main problem with Linux. When you have to support 1000+ machines you don't want 1000+ different configurations. And even if you standardised the config and UI across your organsiation, it won't be the same as the next place you go and work, nor will it be the same for new people who start here, or contractors who have to come in and do work. The overhead of too much flexiblility actually detracts from the product. Bill Gates knows this. Steve Jobs knew this. If only the 'smart' guys who

No I didn't, in fact I even covered that point specifically in my post. No matter what your standard is with Linux, it won't be the same as company B or Company C which is where you get your staff from. With MS and Apple it is.

Solution: get competent staff. You know, people that actually know what they're doing, other than the "point there, click there" types. Linux has more options, you could use that to your advantage. You could alternatively stick to the single choice Apple gives you, or the very few choices MS gives you. Apple makes it extra easy that way, of course, less brainpower needed.

Don't be confused into thinking that you are insightful because you were modded up. If you had a clue you would know that Linux is the mainstream corporate OS, backed by most important major corporations, including IBM; maybe you've heard of them and their insistence on dressing well and wearing a tie?

-Make a shitty enterprise app-Tell a client manager it does everything and more-Drop a few "free licenses"-Have some consultants slap together a demo-Secure support contract for next 1000 years-Leave trail of slime on your way to the bank

Though we are a "Windows Shop" here at my company, we have more Linux servers than Windows servers. How can that be? Turns out, our storage appliances, our Cisco phone system, our VMWare servers and lots more if you include the multi-function copiers and stuff are all Linux machines. We also have a small collection of Linux machines I put together which just run and run and run...

At one time, we were in a meeting talking about various topics and someone made the statement about Linux being a hobbyist system and blah blah blah... I was silent for a moment and then pointed out the largest professional server deployments on the planet are running under Linux.... and oh yeah, so are most of our servers... voicemail, virtual hosts, storage and all that. How, exactly, is Linux just a hobbyist system?

Linux, itself, is very widely accepted, used and relied upon. It is very proven.

What is needed now is serious added push for the SaMBa project to embrace and extend on Microsoft's AD. Take it over and make it better. After all, it's a bunch of services. There's a lot of really smart people out there who are quite capable and looking for a good project to get involved in. I'd like to point in SaMBa's direction. One thing it seriously lacks is a dumbass configuration tool.

I get that we can tweak on config files all day long and the SWAT thing is kinda nice. But we need to compete with the Windows domain server GUI tools and all that. The functionality is very much there. Now we just need something that dumbasses can use.

I don't think it's so much that they're looking for acceptance. I think it's moreso that they want businesses to use it for more things. I'd also say it's widely accepted as-is, but apparently they're not happy with already-staggering server and mobile market shares.

If you want to get more people to use something, make it something they want to use.

Or maybe, just maybe, accept that your product has its niche, and other products have other niches. The Linux community will rip itself to shreds trying t

How can that be? Turns out, our storage appliances, our Cisco phone system, our VMWare servers and lots more if you include the multi-function copiers and stuff are all Linux machines.

The key word here is "appliance."

A single-purpose device that users never give the slightest thought to until it fails. The operating system and user interface are deeply embedded, heavily customized, and off-limits to everyone but the technician who maintains it.

Linux, itself, is very widely accepted, used and relied upon. It is very proven.

In the back office. In the server rooms.

The domain of the IT pro ---

which can look very much like the home of a 43 year old UNIX mainframe.

What is needed now is serious added push for the SaMBa project to embrace and extend on Microsoft's AD

AD is just a subset of LDAP so what you are after already existed years ago with things like a system Netscape was pushing in their final days. There's still plenty of LDAP stuff around but it's as big of a pain in the arse to configure as AD, so tends to only be used in niches.

It's called LDAP and Kerberos.You can use it to do all sorts of stuff at an enterprise level (like use it to drive/push puppet policy). Get single sign on and decent account management. This has always been possible.

But do you know what it's missing? Someone saying "This is how you do *this*, no if ands or buts."Then you wrap GUIs and best practices around that repeatable activity that maps to 95% of business cases.

People like you pretend that Unix users are masochists and want to spend any more time than they really have to on something. In truth, Unix users are even more lazy. They just have some degree of enlightened self-interest when it comes to their laziness.

I will actually spend less time on stupid nonsense.

Automation vs. pretty pictures.

While GUIs can certainly be automated far better than they are, this anti-intellectualism and pandering to idiots to the detrim

I *have* had several heart attacks and am in poor health. Mostly retired, just doing a little part-time work for Slashdot and a few others.

Am I supposed to call you an insensitive clod now? Nah. Too trite.

Seriously, in 2010 I had a heart attack, got stents put in, and 5 hours after I got out of the hospital I had congestive heart failure and died. Got resuscitated, but all the tubes the EMS guys stuck down my throat left me with more rasp than voice.

He's always been an apologist for Windows -- even right during his tenure writing for Linux Magazine. This isn't to say that Linux doesn't have its shortcomings, nor Windows its strengths: they both do. But, dammit: when you're writing for a Linux magazine, you eat the dogfood, you don't find reasons to prophesize that Linux will never be a contender. Which he did. Repeatedly.

In a nutshell: I can't be bothered to listen to his drivel. I called him on his antics, both in forums, and directly via e-mail, and he never dignified me with a response. I certainly needn't dignify his verbal ramblings with time wasted on my side.

Personally, when I found that Linux didn't do what I wanted, I learned how to *make* it do it. This held true when automounting didn't use SunOS mappings, and when there were no office-suite-like applications. Does this make me a dork for wanting to use my favorite OS? I guess that's a matter of perspective. But I certainly didn't sit there, *in the employ of a Linux magazine*, and say "Sorry, folks: Linux will never be able be able to measure up -- might as well throw in the towel." Again: each has st

In my experience, one thing blocking the adoption of Linux in corporate environments are MS-Access applications. Not only legacy ones, that could be moved, but the fact that there is nowhere to move them to. There is simply nothing that remotely approaches Access in the Linux world, and it's a pity.

In my experience, one thing blocking the adoption of Linux in corporate environments are MS-Access applications. Not only legacy ones, that could be moved, but the fact that there is nowhere to move them to. There is simply nothing that remotely approaches Access in the Linux world, and it's a pity.

Granted, my experience with Access is limited. But I do not find its lack to be a detriment for any platform.

There are 1-to-1 tools like LibreOffice Base. Those setups can move data to a shared RDBMS backend (MySQL & others) when concurrency is needed.
Then with data in a database backend, any web tool from Ruby-on-Rails to PHP libraries can edit the data or render graphs.

Well, Access is fairly crappy as well, even compared to the ancient database I've taken my handle from. I'd say ignore both since there are real sql alternatives available on nearly every platform you can think of for nothing or close to it. Even a lot of the ebook readers on low end hardware are running sqllite, which pisses all over MS Access in every way. MS Access is just a toy, and that's from someone that has been wasting time writing macros for it since around 1995 and has seen fuckall real improv

LibreOffice Base is a good start, but is far from offering the ease of prototyping and reporting of Access. Also the forms are clunky in my experience. I've tried using it and found it very lacking. I had high hopes in it when it was announced, and hoped to replace Access with it, but I had to come back to Access shaking my head. One would say it isn't so difficult! Access offers a "good enough" RAD from Access 97, that is... 15 years ago! Somebody should have stitched together a scripting language, a datab

to many distros and linux moves a little to fast for most Enterprise user.

Not relevant. An enterprise user will be sticking with something for a number of years, so they'll end up with something that has an extended support duration like RHEL, SuSE, or (if Canonical is up to it) Ubuntu LTS.

Look at the windows site lot's of enterprises are now just moving to 7.

No surprise there. Vista was too fat and all the hardware they had for running XP on is old, slow, and dying.

WTF? Just recently I've been reading estimates that Microsoft's share in the Server OS market has dropped from 70% to 30% over the past several years. Where did that all go if not to Linux?

Well, OK, sometimes shops move up from Windows to Solaris--yes it really does happen--and sometimes smallish mediumish ones might put in a Mac. But I don't see anyway it could possibly be less than 90% of Windows' loss in share that has gone to Linux. So, as a rough guess, Microsoft losing 40 points equates to Linux gaini

And that is a game that has been tried, and failed many times. Enterprises aren't hooked to Windows as much as they are the tools they use on it. Excel being probably the biggest one. The amount of power that desktop app has is ridiculous, and while I can applaud all the open source flavors, nothing comes even close. You can't unseat Windows or make Linux more tractable in the enterprise without removing the dependence on Office.

You can make Linux awesome, make Samba a worthy AD competitor, but if you don't have the productivity suite that makes it amazing, the cost of a $90 Windows license is nothing compared to the productivity you'd give up to lose Excel. Here's a hint folks -- people don't look at the price of the OS, nor do they care. They look at the value of the suite of tools that allow an employee to work. If you could make a business case that a Calicovision would make you more productive than Windows, I think you'd see a swell of pilots testing it out.

Linux isn't being ignored because it's bad -- well... partly because it is, but that's more a Samba fix -- it's being ignored because it does not contain a worthwhile replacement to the jobs people are already doing, and the businesses already engrained in workflows that surround and use Office. And you will not break that mold easily, if ever. And it's why I still say Windows Phone is going to do well over time.... but I'll gladly eat my words if I'm wrong.

> You have to beat Microsoft Office ^H^H^H Outlook.FTFY. Office per say isn't the problem -- the integrated calendar / contacts of Exchange is the problem that sadly Open Source (OS) hasn't quite solved (yet).:-(

> is nothing compared to the productivity you'd give up to lose Excel.Having used Excel since before verison 5 ( http://www.cpearson.com/excel/versions.htm [cpearson.com] ) I find OpenOffice, sorry, Libre Office to be better in some ways and worse in others. LibreOffice is a perfectly fine replacement fo

I bet this guy had no idea he was being recorded. He looks like he just woke up.
I kept staring at his beard thinking that a bird would come out of it, like in Family Guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnyEiXFyK10 [youtube.com]

It needs an app that can integrate/replace exchange. And no, Thunderbird+Lightning doesn't come close. Just for starters, it needs to allow people to view others' calendars, easily schedule meetings in other peoples' available time, allow booking of resources like rooms, etc.

Secondly, it needs to work with the massive multifunction printing systems out of the box. I realize this is dependant on printer manufacturers more than the Linux devs, but the end-user doesn't care about who's problem it is - all they know is that printers work on Windows, and don't on Linux.

I use Linux at my workplace; these are the two primary functions it can't fulfil.

Businesses don't use Windows just to use Windows. Businesses use Windows to use Office, Active Directory, and Exchange. Linux has competitors to all three but they're not even CLOSE, no matter how much the evangelists puff them up.

What do you get when you put a whole office on Linux? You get a bunch of people sitting around using Linux. But they're not doing anything productive. Nobody's paying them to use Linux. No customers are giving your company money to have an office full of people sit around and "use Linux". Linux is not the product, Linux is the platform. Right now, the Linux platform for enterprise is severely lacking in comparison to Windows. The "Why" is dreadfully simple: there are no serious products that give the platform value.

Focus community effort on building solid competitors to Office, Active Directory, and Exchange. Maybe try creating something completely new, or maybe just try to mimic the MS products as best you can. Mimic might be better, because then you can show them how similar your products are so the switching cost is minimal, yet one costs a whole lot less, therefore the TCO is much lower.

In case you haven't noticed, Microsoft likes to throw around TCO as their metric. That's because most businesses don't care about up-front cost, they focus on what you'll pay over the life of the product. Put the most amount of effort possible into minimizing the switching costs. Linux will become a much more viable desktop platform in the enterprise when you can demonstrate meaningful cost savings that take TCO into account. Until then, Microsoft will continue to give enterprise customers concrete and logical reasons for why they should choose their product over all others.

It seems you completely missed the fact that I was talking about desktop platforms. Linux is already king of the server space, but as long as Windows maintains its strangle-hold on the desktop market, they will maintain a foothold in the server market. Read my post again with that in mind.

As a pro-open source IT manager for a medium sized company, I can tell you with certainty that besides software compatibility, the #2 problem is letting me do close to everything in a GUI. I don't have time to sit there and type 50 text commands just to install Java or reconfigure some little system setting. Where's the right click, run as root, password prompting super simple sequence?
Also nobody at my company knows how to use Linux, I don't know anything about configure whatever the equivilant of group

is the lack of support for Active Directory, SharePoint and desktop applications like MS Project and Visio. The vast majority of big shops are running this stuff. I've got to hand it to Microsoft - they did a pretty good job of sewing up that market.

I love using Linux and I use it pretty much every day but there are some limitations to what you can do. The interface is great. You can make it look any way you want and it provides a lot more flexibility than Windows in that regard. Compared to Windows it's su